HOWELL — There aren’t many players who draw the attention of two defenders without being double-teamed.
Maeve St. John is one of them.
The Howell guard was guarded by Hartland’s Emmy Sargeant and Olivia Linden throughtout Friday’s Division 1 district final. They stuck close to her, not allowing much time to shoot and pursuing her all over the court.
St. John hit for a game-high 17 points anyway, and Hartland coach Don Palmer was pleased.
“Like I say,” he joked, “it wasn’t 25.”
As a result, Hartland, which scored 21 points in the first quarter and was shut out in the second, advanced to Tuesday’s regional with a 45-36 win over Howell. The Eagles (21-1) will play Lakeland in the second half of a regional semifinal doubleheader at Fenton High School.
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Lakeland advanced by outlasting Milford, 28-25, on Friday.
“Maeve’s a great player,” Sargeant said. “I’ve played against her for so long, and I knew this would be a hard challenge.”
“Emmy is not one who gets tired too often,” St. John said. “It made me a little more tired. t/hey did a good job switching back and forth.”
The rest of the Hartland defense was stifling enough, holding guards Sophie Daugard, Molly Deurloo, and Caitlyn Rayl to a combined 12 points, but the Hartland offense came out firing.
The Eagles scored 21 points in the first quarter, nine by Amanda Roach, and led 21-12 and looked as if they were going to run away and hide.
Then the shots stopped falling for Hartland, as in all of them. The Eagles did not score in the second quarter, but they also shut down Howell’s outside shooting. The five points they did score came all inside paint, courtesy of Amelia Storm.
“Part of the reason was we weren’t rebounding,” Roach said. “At the half, Coach Palmer said we had to rebound. We started doing that, and we started making our shots.”
The Highlanders (16-6) had cut the deficit t 21-17 at halftime, only to see Hartland hit five 3-pointers in the third quarter to get the lead back to double digits, where it stayed most of the rest of the way.
“They hit big shots,” Howell coach Tim Olszewski said. “They hit five 3s, most of them contested. That `12-0 run to start the third quarter really set us bck again, but we battled. We fought, and we clawed our way back, but time ran out on us, and our season. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
The game was played before a large crowd, which filled the Howell side of the gym and about two-thirds of the stands on the Hartland side.
“I wonder if they thought it was a boys game,” Palmer joked. “In this day and age, you don’t get to experience that much in a sporting event that attracts people.”
“You love playing in front of crowds lke that,” St. John said. “You love the chirpiness of the sectopin on both sides. You love playing in that atmosphere.”
Roach finished with 15 points and Lauren Sollom added 11 for Hartland.
It was the fourth district title in a row for the Eagles.
“It feels so good,” Sargeant said, “We knew (Howell) would be our hardest game, and if we won we would have a very good sht at the rest of the tournament, so we’re pretty pumped.”
“It’s crazy,” Roach said, asked if winning a fourth district was a little routine. “You don’t see a lot of teams win four in a row. It’s still a very big deal for us.”
